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Environment Minister Eamon Ryan TD discusses an integrated approach to crises
Minister Eamon Ryan TD: “Our whole forestry system has to change”
Minister Eamon Ryan TD says it is critical to ensure an integrated approach to the challenges of the climate, biodiversity, and pollution crises.
Ryan states that Budget 2023 shows that “all three government parties are committed to working in a way which ensures that these three sectors deliver an integrated response”.
“This year the retrofit budget has went from about €300 million to €500 million in 2023. Wider industry knows that retrofitting is inevitable and they are able to gear up to face the biggest obstacle coming, which is getting workers, as they can have confidence in our budgets. In previous years, funding was stop-start”.
On agriculture, the Minister outlines spending increases announced in the Budget: “There is €500 million within the agricultural budget, committed to agrienvironment schemes, addressing biodiversity loss within agriculture. This is a key part of what we need to do. The farming community, in my opinion, is starting to clearly buy into it; it has been transformed because people know that it makes economic sense as well as environmental sense. We are starting to see the change we need in Irish agriculture.”
Land use review
Ryan states that the concept of land use reform has come a long way since the formation of the Government, and promotes the land use review as key to achieving emissions reductions.
“We found it very difficult in the initial negotiations for the Programme for Government to even say ‘land use plan’ for fear that you are just telling a farmer or a forester what to do.
“From my point of view, the [land use] review is critical as it is the central key mechanism to make sure that we are engaged in pollution reduction, restoration of biodiversity, as well as the lowering of emissions. It is half way through its course, the first half being an evidence gathering phase in collaboration with the EPA, Teagasc, and other state agencies.”
He further outlines the necessity for ensuring that the land use review “now moves onto the policy formulation side” and that prioritises rural communities, ensuring that they play their part in “restoring biodiversity, reducing emissions, and addressing the water nitrogen and ammonia pollution problems”.
He adds: “In certain parts of the country you see the ammonia and nitrogen issue flaring because of an intensive agriculture practice primarily.”
Scope for biomethane production
Looking to the sectoral emissions ceilings outlined in the Programme for Government, Minister Ryan outlines his belief in the potential of the agricultural sector in playing a role in production of biogas.
“The agriculture sector in this country is very much geared towards grass growth. However, they could take half of that grass growth and feed it into anaerobic digestion, mixed with waste products, and the slurry from the remaining herd on the other side of the farm. That process, if adopted by our agricultural sector on a wide scale, can give us a source of gas which is potentially sustainable.”
He continues: “You could have a farm producing its own gas, running its own machinery, running a CHP plant off it for its own use, and still have an export capability. With that, you still have a real potential to use the digestate to fertilise the land rather than synthetic, artificial, fossil-based fertilisers. From that you can then start to get a circular, sustainable solution which delivers on climate, helps with biodiversity, and helps with pollution.”
Managing forestry and wetlands
Ryan believes that “Our whole forestry has to change; a clear felling monoculture, short rotation crop system, whilst it may deliver a lot of timber and could even be seen as a storer of carbon, is not good for biodiversity and it does not help with our pollution problems”.
He adds: “The Bill for riparian forestry systems, being worked on by [Minister of State] Pippa Hackett TD, has huge potential benefits; it allows us to expand and increase our store of carbon in forestry, our land use sector is the sector where we do not currently have the necessary carbon storage solutions.”
The Minister states that it is crucial to begin “re-wetting our lands”, and acknowledges that this will mean significant reform for agricultural practices.
“This is going to be very difficult because for 50 years we have been telling farmers to drain their land, optimise it, and get maximum output. Now we are saying ‘block the drains, wet the land’.
“By managing grazing and wetland management, which is good for birdlife and good for biodiversity, you do not just let it go wild in the sense that you see hazel, birch, and other treelines coming up because that would drain the land for carbon. We want to manage grazing and wetlands so that we can manage the storing of carbon in the peaty soils where you manage it as a wetland area, thus helping in the storing of that carbon and at the same time getting an agricultural output.”
The Minister concludes by stating that: “We need to know how to ensure that these complementary but different sectors can work in tandem to stop climate change, restore nature, and reduce pollution.”
Renewable gas is critical to energy security and to achieving net zero carbon by 2050
Gas Networks Ireland hosted a round table discussion on how renewable gas can underpin Ireland’s energy security and play a key role in decarbonising the energy system.
What role will renewable gas play in simultaneously delivering Ireland’s energy security and its net zero carbon ambition?
Denis O’Sullivan
There is an obvious role for biomethane and other renewable gases substituting for natural gas. Renewable gas will also support the rollout of renewable electricity. We have very ambitious renewable electricity targets, and it will be very difficult to provide a back-up when those intermittent renewable sources, such as wind and solar, are not there. Ireland’s electricity future is predominantly wind, with some solar, and then biomethane and hydrogen. Hydrogen production will also be intermittent as it will be produced from renewable electricity. Therefore, biomethane is really the only renewable fuel source that is fully dispatchable in terms of energy security of supply until we have hydrogen storage at scale. The current focus on energy security has highlighted the need for the diversity in energy supply that biomethane and hydrogen will bring.
Round table discussion hosted by
John Reilly
Although biogas is peripheral today, it will become crucial. We cannot achieve the level of intermittent renewable electricity needed to meet carbon budgets without dispatchable back-up capacity. The role of gas in getting us to zero carbon on the electricity system is well understood. The key question therefore is how we decarbonise that gas and how quickly do we want to do that. We have just completed a study looking out to 2035, and we see Ireland achieving more than 90 per cent renewable electricity, mainly from wind energy. At that level we will be producing a lot of excess energy that could be used to produce green hydrogen, thereby reducing constraints on the power system. Locating electrolysers strategically on the network could facilitate the injection of that green hydrogen into the gas network, thereby reducing the volume of natural gas required to meet demand. In 2035, if you assume the electricity system has a demand of 45 TWh, you only need about 4.5 TWh of gas-fired electricity. This year we will produce circa 16 TWh of gas-fired
Tom O’Brien
In Ireland, we have been very successful in decarbonising the electricity system. We now need to start decarbonising heat. Ireland has among the lowest levels of renewable heat across Europe. Renewable gas will play a critical role in that. The war in Ukraine has also accelerated the focus around security of energy supply. Increasing domestic gas self-sufficiency is now hugely important. There is also a strong demand from industry for renewable gas, particularly in sectors that are hard to decarbonise such as food and beverage production. Compared to the rest of Europe, we have a lot of catching up to do.
Jerry Murphy
As an academic you are always looking to the future. I could have had this conversation in 1992 when I finished my master’s degree in biomethane. I have led the International Energy Agency Bioenergy Biogas task group for six years and have seen some fabulous case studies and seen what individual countries are doing. For example, Denmark has 25 per cent renewable gas averaged over the year; it has a farreaching strategy out to 2035 to approach a fully decarbonised gas grid. Their biomethane industry started with a concept of minimising spreading of slurry to land as it was polluting water courses; they built large AD plants to treat slurries and wastes. In Switzerland, I have seen energy co-ops with wind and PV, with biogas to provide for the night-time demand. This co-op is able to produce energy at a time the market needs it, and biogas is a key element in doing that. I have seen a lot of bespoke solutions such as trucks using liquified biomethane, produced from slaughter waste, to fuel 1,000km of heavy truck transport from one fill in Sweden. Unlike a wind turbine, a biogas plant is usually built for a reason beyond just energy, typically to treat a waste stream.
John Melvin
In terms of the path to net zero, certainly renewable gas will have a significant role to play. We now have five-year carbon budgets that we must meet and meeting the 2025 budget will be very difficult, for example, we recently published a paper that shows that, for the first time in many 4
Roundtable participants
John Melvin
John Melvin was appointed as the Director of Security of Supply and Wholesale Markets in CRU in February 2022 having previously been the Director of Energy Markets and Smart Metering and before that the Director of Energy Networks and Legal. The Security of Supply and Wholesale Division is leading a programme of actions to ensure a secure energy transition to 2030 and beyond. The Division oversees the wholesale all-island Single Electricity Market (SEM) in cooperation with the Utility Regulator in Belfast.
Jerry Murphy
Jerry Murphy is Director of the SFI MaREI Centre for energy, climate and marine and Professor of Civil Engineering in University College Cork. He led the Biogas Task of the International Energy Agency (IEA) Bioenergy from 2016 to 2021 and has edited and authored numerous IEA Bioenergy reports. He was awarded the Engineers Ireland Excellence Award (2015) for best paper/presentation, the Marine Industry Award for Excellence in Marine Research (2017), an adjunct professorship in University of Southern Queensland (2018), a fellowship of the Irish Academy of Engineers in 2019 and was elected to the international advisory board of DBFZ (German Bioenergy Research Centre) in 2020.
Tom O’Brien
Tom O’Brien is Managing Director of Nephin Energy, Ireland’s largest domestic producer of natural gas. He has over 20 years’ experience in the energy industry and has worked on many of Ireland’s largest windfarm projects including its only producing offshore wind farm project to date. He was senior adviser and project lead in Ireland for CPPIB's $1.23 billion acquisition of Shell's interest in the Corrib Gas Field and now leads the company that would eventually own CPPIB's interest in the field, Nephin Energy. He holds an LLB from University College Cork, an LLM from University College London and a diploma in finance from University College Dublin.
Denis O’Sullivan
Denis O’Sullivan is the Chief Operating Officer of Gas Networks Ireland, the semi-state organisation responsible for operating Ireland’s €2.7 billion, 14,617km national gas network, and ensuring the safe and reliable delivery of gas to more than 706,000 homes and businesses across the country. He has been at the forefront of Ireland’s energy sector for over 20 years with experience in conventional and renewable energies, including natural gas, wind energy, biomass, and waste to energy. O’Sullivan is also the co-chair of the Low Carbon Economy Group with Business in the Community.
John Reilly
John Reilly is Head of Renewable Energy at Bord na Móna. His team is currently leading a €1.6 billion investment programme which will see the company add at least 1GW of new renewable assets to its fleet by 2030. Reilly has over 20 years’ experience in the energy sector and was previously part of the senior management team at Edenderry Power, prior to its acquisition by Bord na Móna. He has worked for a number of major international utility players in the sector, such as the German utility E.ON and Fortum, a Finnish utility company. He holds a PhD in Chemistry from UCD.
years, the carbon intensity of electricity in the single electricity market has increased. Both hydrogen and biomethane will have an important role to play on the way to net zero. In the short term, we need to inject biomethane into the system and we are now seeing that. The development of hydrogen at a European level, and also at an Irish level, will be key over the next number of years. The oil crisis in the 1970s led to the progress, in leaps and bounds, of energy efficiency. The confluence of the transition to net zero and the need to move away from Russian gas can lead Europe to make a bold move in the development of hydrogen. For Ireland’s energy independence, what fuels we can produce on the island are critical. When we have excess electricity supply, we need to have a means of storing that and batteries and hydrogen will play key roles. Looking at the supply chain for batteries, that will not bring independence for Europe and therefore hydrogen is crucial. We should also ensure that any gas-fired electricity plant is hydrogen-ready, and any further gas infrastructure should be future proofed in terms of hydrogen.
How will the acceleration of renewable gas development align with the European policy context?
Denis O’Sullivan
We are a laggard. In 2019, there was a target set of 1.6 TWh of renewable gas, which equates to roughly 3 per cent of gas consumed in Ireland, as a biomethane target. That target held until the EU proposed a 10 per cent target, 5.7 TWh. I do not believe that Ireland would have moved to that target if it had not come from the EU. We have had
alternatives.” Denis O’Sullivan
electrification as our predominant policy for the last number of years; now is the time when we need a refocusing on the complementary technologies that are out there such as biomethane. We are not going to achieve our targets solely by electrification, we need alternatives. We need to up our game in terms of policy measures and supports for these alternatives.
John Reilly
This year we hosted the German minister responsible for green hydrogen. He visited a number of sites and was very impressed with the potential Ireland has for green hydrogen production at scale but was underwhelmed by the absence of a coherent strategy. That is something we need to address quickly to ensure alignment with Europe. Therefore, the Government is due to produce a hydrogen strategy for Ireland, which can’t come soon enough, as every time Ursula von der Leyen gives a speech about security of supply, green hydrogen seems to be at the core of the speech. We know in Ireland that when we put coherent policies in place, the sector delivers. Look what has happened with wind energy, while on the flip side we have made little progress on biomethane in a country that should be leading the way given our resources.
Tom O’Brien
The European Commission found that Ireland has the best agri-feedstock per capita in Europe, but we are only one of three countries in Europe without a policy to incentivise renewable gas development. Now look at what Denmark, the next best country, has achieved – 25 per cent of gas from renewable sources and, at times during this summer, 100 per cent of daily gas requirement was coming from renewable sources. We have an agricultural sector that wants to decarbonise and wants to identify new revenue streams, but we have not done anything yet to empower the sector. REPowerEU has biomethane explicitly included for targets and funding supports and will nudge Ireland along. Hopefully the momentum we see at a European level will spur local policymakers into action.
Jerry Murphy
REPowerEU is important with its doubling of the biomethane target. Ireland is at the back of the class; I am one of the most cited academics with regard to biomethane and there is nothing of merit in my own country to look at. Denmark does not use any energy crops; by 2030, raw slurry may not be spread on the land and from this they have created a biogas industry supplying 25 per cent of the natural gas market. There is exasperation; we look at offshore wind, and MARA is a problem for us. We do not have planning beyond 12 nautical miles. Delegations from the Netherlands and Germany are upset that we have this fantastic resource, but we cannot start. Scotland and England had these laws in place since 2012; Scotland’s offshore infrastructure is incredible and now they are making hydrogen at sea. We are so far behind.
John Melvin
The development of renewable gas could not have any greater alignment with the European policy. Prior to the invasion of Ukraine, it was clear that decarbonisation was needed. We do have biomethane on the system in Ireland, nowhere near the scale needed to meet targets but the first step has been taken. The decarbonisation piece has always been there and the pivot from carbon capture and storage towards hydrogen was visible prior to the invasion. Since then, the production of renewable gasses within Europe has tied in much more strongly for the achievement of strategic autonomy, which the UK has always had an eye on, hence their LNG development long in advance of the decline in their indigenous production.
How is your organisation supporting the development of renewable gas in Ireland?
Denis O’Sullivan
We do have biomethane coming onto the network, it represents less than 1 per cent but what it does is set the 4
framework for how we will bring larger volumes of biomethane onto the network, how we treat safety requirements, etc. That was done in the absence of policy. The pent-up potential is significant; GNI has approximately 150 projects on the books waiting for a market signal through policy to deliver. The demonstration project is working well but we are moving on from that and the next step is the construction of a large central injection point that has received planning permission. GNI can pull the trigger on that tomorrow but the AD plants that need to be constructed will not be in the absence of supports.
John Reilly
I have had the privilege in Bord na Móna to operate under three CEOs and we have had three runs at biomethane and AD, but progress has been slow for a variety of reasons. We have recently secured planning permission for an 80,000-tonne anaerobic digestor just outside of Portlaoise and we are working with GNI to facilitate the direct injection of the biomethane produced into the gas network. One frustration is the length of time it takes to secure planning for a process and facility that is widely used all over the world. The planning permission has been appealed to the High Court, as that unfortunately is how things go with infrastructure development in Ireland. We hope to have the facility operating in 2025 as part of our wider decarbonisation strategy, which includes the production of green hydrogen at our Mountlucas wind farm to displace distillate from our peaking capacity.
Jerry Murphy
We have 250 researchers at the moment; we have graduated 100 PhDs and we have 100 PhDs in place. We are in the production of intelligence around energy, climate, and marine. We look at where the electrolyser can be positioned, the cost of producing hydrogen, circular economy systems, etc. 250 people come in every day to do research on these types of topics and then go into the atmosphere; 49 per cent have stayed in Ireland. We look at decarbonisation pathways from many perspectives. We have lawyers, ecologists, engineers, and scientists and have 110 industries who have or had contracts with us codesigning practical optimised solutions to sustainability and decarbonisation.
Tom O’Brien
Nephin Energy is well positioned to participate in the industry if it takes off here. We have extensive experience in the production and sale of gas in Ireland and with our capital strength I think we could develop an interesting biomethane business. I think our existing gas buyers would love the opportunity to buy renewable gas from us. There is unmet demand out there for renewable gas, even in the absence of the Renewable Heat Obligation (RHO), which is not to say it is not needed, it is and fast. We desperately need the right regulatory and policy environment for this industry to really take off.
John Melvin
One of the key things we can do is give the funds and incentives to system operators. In the case of GNI, John is anxious that the gas connection gets built quickly to move from distillate to natural gas. The evidence is that GNI can get infrastructure into planning and through construction, so the funds and incentives are there. The innovation fund that we brought in PC3 and PC4 has brought through the pilot methane and compressed natural gas projects to bring lower carbon fuels into transport. That mechanism has delivered to promote these innovations and the aims of the fund are the delivery of carbon savings, increasing the through-put through the gas system, and providing measurable value to customers. As we move into PC5, we would expect a similar approach. Those funds have so far been used to display that these things can be done here.
How will the transition to renewable gas determine the end-user experience?
Denis O’Sullivan
One of the things that we have prioritised is that the end user will have no real change of experience from where they are today. If a customer is using natural gas today, and we blend in anything from 1 per cent to 100 per cent biomethane, they will have no change in their experience. In terms of hydrogen, we are testing blends into our network without impacting the customer experience. Hydrogen is different from biomethane as it is a different chemical construct and we have shown so far that you can blend up to 30 per cent hydrogen without impacting the customer on the distribution system. We have more testing to do on the transmission system and the power generation sector so that they can facilitate hydrogen. We are confident that we can bring the distribution and transmission system to 100 per cent hydrogen over time.
John Melvin
What is clear is that the user experience will have the same level of safety as it does now. We have already managed this through careful changes to the code of operations for biomethane injection and changes to the safety case. The consumer can be assured that there will be no difference in terms of safety.
Jerry Murphy
In terms of transport, in Linköping they have a slaughter facility in operation since the 90s where they digest by-products to provide fuel for 85 buses. This was a system set up by their farmers association, the university, the municipality, and the bus company. The biogas facility recently lost the contract supplying biogas for the bus service, so they set up liquified biomethane service station for trucks that are now able to travel up to 1,000km on one fill which is suitable for long distance haulage. The biogas facility worked closely with their stakeholders to deal with changes. In decarbonising the heavy transport sector in Ireland, there will need to be change but this impact can be minimised for the citizen by industry working together and realising the opportunities associated with decarbonisation.
What one thing should government do to support the development of renewable gas deployment in Ireland?
John Reilly
framework for biomethane and other renewable gases that contribute to the decarbonisation of the gas network. That framework should include appropriate supports, similar to those seen in wind energy. I did a PhD in pharmaceutical chemistry and when doing that I was rather excited by large complex molecules. I hope to finish my career by being excited by the smallest molecule known to mankind, hydrogen.
Tom O’Brien
Denis O’Sullivan
Energy system integration, which is highlighted in the Climate Action Plan. There needs to be a coherent plan between gas and electricity and a policy pathway clearly laying out that pathway with relevant supports put into place. At the moment every sector has their own targets, and we need a coherent plan across all sectors.
Tom O’Brien
We are likely to have a stick in the form of the RHO, but as we have seen across Europe, we need a carrot in terms of grants or subsidies to accelerate growth, particularly in the early years. We also need to look at our planning system. Germany and Austria have benefitted from easier transparent planning for AD development.
Jerry Murphy
I have seen very granular policy in Germany that dictates how much water to have in slurry, etc. I have seen higher level policy such as in Denmark, which introduced a phase out over 20 years in application of raw slurry to land which led to the development of biogas facilities of scale. The best way to develop the renewable gas sector in Ireland is to mandate a graduated increasing percentage of gas to be from renewable sources over defined time periods.
John Melvin
CRU has Action 54 in CAP 21, expanding the successful public sector energy efficiency monitoring and reporting programme to incorporate GHG emissions reduction. We need to swiftly decarbonise the gas grid through biomethane and hydrogen, which will facilitate growth on the way to net zero. The sooner we decarbonise our own economy, the sooner we can look at opportunities to export clean energy.
How secure is cloud storage? A look at data security risks in the cloud
In the event of an escalation of hostilities in the international sphere, exposed cloud systems would be a natural target. Researchers have already observed some activity of this sort, targeting cloud databases located in Russia. Some compromised databases had file names replaced with anti-war messages, but the largest number were completely wiped.
How to secure your cloud databases?
As cloud systems are increasingly the foundation on which digital transformation is built, paying attention to their security is essential in cybersecurity best practice.
There are several changes that can be made to help mitigate risks of data held to ransom, destructive attacks, or data leakage. They include:
• Limit permissions: Apply principle of least privilege to users and cloud accounts, thereby minimising risk exposure.
• Encrypt data: Apply strong encryption to business-critical or highly regulated data to mitigate the impact of a leak.
In the past, the Irish Computer Society has reported that more than half of Irish companies have suffered a data breach within the past year. For a long time, cybersecurity experts and government agencies have been urging organisations to enhance their cyber-defences due to the increased threat of cyberattacks. Cloud resources are particularly vulnerable as many can be misconfigured and left without protection. Online databases could be an attractive target for attackers. In fact, researchers have already observed raids on cloud databases, and there are plenty of threat actors out there waiting to take advantage. Cloud systems provide a relatively low cost, scalable, and flexible way to store and manage data, with a lower management burden for IT, built-in disaster recovery and anywhere, anytime access. As a backend for applications, databases stored in the public cloud could contain:
• business-critical corporate data; • personally identifiable information belonging to employees and customers;
• highly sensitive IP and trade secrets; and
• IT/admin information such as APIs or encryption keys, which could be leveraged in future attacks. If any of this data found its way into the wrong hands, it could be hugely damaging for a victim organisation, potentially leading to regulatory fines, legal costs, IT overtime costs, lost productivity and sales, client or customer dissatisfaction and reputational damage. Once left exposed due to misconfiguration, databases can be relatively easily found with internet scanning tools. So, the challenge facing defenders is they need to get security right every time, whereas attackers need only get lucky once. Cloud misconfiguration can take many forms, the most common being: • missing access restrictions; • security group policies which are too permissive; • a lack of permissions controls; • misunderstood internet connectivity paths; • misconfigured virtualised network functions; and • cloud systems are already being targeted.
• Check for compliance before
provisioning: Prioritise infrastructureas-code and automate policy configuration checks as early as possible in the development lifecycle.
• Continuously audit: Cloud resources are notoriously ephemeral and changeable, while compliance requirements will also evolve over time. That makes continuous configuration checks against policy essential. Consider a Cloud Security
Posture Management (CSPM) tools to automate and simplify this process.
As cloud infrastructure grows, so does the cyberattack surface and these best practices should be applied to mitigate mounting cyber risk.
T: 053 914 66 00 E: info@eset.ie W: www.eset.ie
CCAC: Ireland falling well short of emissions targets
The Climate Change Advisory Council (CCAC) annual review has found that only two sectors are making ‘good progress’ in the implementation of the National Adaption Framework and the allowances made in the carbon budget.
The report states that carbon budgets can still be met in spite of the failure to meet the targets set by the Government, but that the war in Ukraine and subsequent energy supply crisis means that significant and early action is required which is consistent with a just transition.
Next national adaption framework
The report states that, whilst the National Adaption Framework and sectoral and local adaption strategies provide a solid foundation for new initiatives, that the model which has been used is “no longer sufficient” owing to the marginal, incremental, and procedural process to achieving adaption in the State.
Recommending a revision of the National Adaptation Framework, the report recommends integration with mitigation, sustainable development, and disaster risk reduction. It further recommends that all existing sectoral adaption plans should be revised and updated with additional plans required for sectors such as financial services, tourism and sport, and the built environment, as well as urgent attention needed for coastal resilience.
CCAC further outlines that the National Adaption Framework and plans under it should be informed by regular national risk assessment and clearly prioritise actions and investments. It further states that decision-makers in the Government and the Civil Service need to better supported in adaption planning, including by providing adequate financial support for planning on a sustained basis.
“Adaption governance structures will also need to be revised and restructured to ensure cross-cutting issues that go across multiple sectors are addressed,” the report states. It further outlines that more
meaningful leadership and coordination across government on climate adaption action are required, calling on the Government to “urgently set forth and then monitor a set of national resilience indicators” to measure the State’s climate resilience and assess progress towards achieving climate resistant development.
For the next National Adaption Framework, the report states that it is critical for an initial adaption budget to be set for 2030, which will follow an assessment of what is required to make the State climate resilient by 2030. “This budget must be determined in light of the social cost of climate change over a least the next 30 years and must reflect the need to prioritise funding for adaption to a significantly greater degree than is currently the case.”
Implementation gap
The report reiterates the concerns raised in the 2021 review, namely that climate ambitions are not being matched by verifiable actions.
Ireland failed to meet its 2020 target of a 20 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and has thus been forced to use allowances purchased from other member states who exceeded their targets. This failure is further exacerbated by the fact that many heavypolluting sectors, such as transport, were inoperative for a large proportion of 2020 due to the Covid-19 lockdowns which took place that year.
“EPA emissions projections suggest that Ireland could meet its no-ETS EU targets of a 30 per cent emissions reduction by 2030, assuming full implementation of planned policies and measures and the use of the flexibles available,” the report states. However, it expresses concerns that the provisional non-ETS emissions in 2021 are 46.2 MtCO2eq, which is above the annual emissions target of 43.5 MtCO2eq. The Fit for 55 package, currently being negotiated, will further increase the emissions ambitions for the EU and this will have to be accounted for at Government level. The report states that achieving compliance with national and EU targets will require a significant acceleration in the planning of new measures and full and rapid implementation of the measures already announced will be necessary to achieve these goals.
The report additionally outlines delays to delivery which form a core part of the implementation gap, namely the delays in the implementation of the Climate Action Plan.
It continues: “Ireland is one of only four EU member states not to have submitted a long-term climate strategy. Other high impact measures, which have been delayed, include the development of a roadmap to promote higher use of low-carbon materials in construction and examining how and when fossil fuel heating systems can be phased out of public buildings.”
CCAC calls for the continuation of the quarterly reports on the progress of the Climate Action Plan, stating that it provided some analysis of the main reasons for the implementation delay, adding that “it is clear that adequate resourcing is at the root of many of these issues”.
It further calls for the next Climate Action Plan to place increased focus on defining the details of planned implementation pathways and identification of further measures across all sectors.
The report concludes by stating that the carbon budgets are useful in that they set clear targets and ensures that the Government can be accountable for the implementation of the emissions frameworks, but that a greater level of urgency on achieving these goals is needed, and that it would have the additional benefit of making Ireland energy secure.
Digital solutions for the public sector
John Stobie, Regional Vice President of Public Sector Sales for Salesforce Ireland. Paul Pick-Aluas, Regional Vice President of Public Sector Strategy and Transformation for Salesforce Europe.
John Stobie, Regional Vice President of Public Sector Sales for Salesforce Ireland, and Paul Pick-Aluas, Regional Vice President of Public Sector Strategy and Transformation for Salesforce Europe, speak to eolas about how Salesforce enables governments to move from reactive service to proactive service.
“We speak to many different stakeholders in government in many different countries,” Stobie says. “There has been a mindset change from the point of view of the way government has traditionally operated. It has always been in more of a reactive mode, whereby it received requests from citizens and businesses and processed those requests.”
Such requests concerned anything from information on benefits to grant applications and driver’s license renewals. In the last number of years, Stobie says, Salesforce has seen a concerted effort to digitise government and move it away from this reactive mode to a proactive mode.
“When we say proactive government, we mean the scenario where the Government is not just waiting for you to ask for something, but anticipating needs based on knowing upcoming events or the situation a citizen is in, and it is reaching out to you to help you in terms of initiating the interaction you are going to require to get the service you want or need,” Stobie explains. “They are following the once-only principle, where a citizen does not need to continuously give government agencies the same information over and over because the Government has already got that information. They look to make it easy for the citizen to supply the information the government does not have and provide simple options to achieve this. They keep the steps minimal and avoid delays, ultimately keeping the citizen informed throughout the journey.”
Salesforce believes that there are three key methodologies that the Government must apply, in tandem, to achieve this transformation: human-centred design, continuous improvement, and process automation. With the elimination of paper, including digital paper such as PDFs that remain the biggest source of cost in many processes, Salesforce attest that this process can both create an efficient system and cut costs.
“There was a recent example where it was estimated that EU taxpayers would save €50 billion annually if they accepted electronic invoicing,” Stobie says. “The costs that come from this process is an important aspect as well; as citizens, we face direct costs in terms of the time we spend learning and applying for the services, the fees we pay, the transport we pay for to go to physical offices and the indirect costs such as solicitors, lost wages, lost revenues for businesses.”
The US offers an international example of a state further down the line of this process, and Pick-Aluas offers the example of its Department of Agriculture (USDA). With around 100,000 employees in more than 4,500 locations offering services as diverse as crop insurance, conservation programmes, commodity management, technical assistance, lending, and disaster relief to farmers, ranchers, and agricultural producers, the sector was “very suitable for the methodologies of proactive government”.
The US federal government began an initiative to stand up centres of excellence, starting with the USDA, and reimagine portfolios of services to break down silos and improve efficiency. This was, in part, to tackle an issue of funding in some programmes being unclaimed due to those eligible being unable to navigate the system. Accenture and Salesforce built a one-stop shop where these farmers, ranchers and producers could fill out a variety of forms, check loan balances and statuses, apply for disaster relief, and find the most convenient office when there was still a need to go in. Seven digital platforms and 150 federal web resources were consolidated into a single platform.
“The way we went about this was starting with human-centred design, considering what the service journey should look like and realigning systems with a single engagement layer to provide a better experience,” Pick-Aluas says. “We managed to bring it all on one platform and connect the data to automate the steps in a systematic way. For instance, if you apply for a loan or crop insurance, they already have your information and are not going to ask you again for the same information. They managed to get more of the funding out, and to date the funding is in the tens of billions of dollars. It has significantly improved the experience for the users and employees and driving cost efficiency by reducing friction points and reliance on paper.
“This is what we hope to do in Europe as well. It is about human-centred design, not just user-centred design. There has often been far too much emphasis on the engagement layer alone, implementing portals, etc, which are first steps in the transformation journey but often they become the only step and thus a veneer on a broken system offering marginal improvements in the citizen experience. Limited or no attention is given to the business processes that need to be reengineered.”
Salesforce’s work with the Irish public sector is, of course, happening in the context of Connecting Government 2030, the Irish Government’s digital strategy. “When you look at the different areas in there, there is a lot of the collaborative side, the integration between different departments, and it is a question of the implementation,” Stobie says. “It is important having a strategy document, but it comes down to how the different departments and agencies pull those pieces together.”
Pick-Aluas adds: “Connecting Government 2030 gives a good direction but leans too much on the experience side and IT efficiency rather than the service efficiency. It needs to go further. Beyond human-centred design you have the concept of continuous improvement. A lot of times, agencies and departments tend to freeze because the veneer is easy to do while it has its challenges, but the process seems overwhelming.”
Central to addressing these issues is Salesforce’s low-code platform, which provides a platform to layer horizontal enablers to help with document intake, authentication, and generation, as well as vertical solutions that would not have traditionally been considered automation options. Pick-Aluas also speaks with excitement of Salesforce’s recently unveiled project, Genie: “Genie is akin to a citizen data platform in the public sector context as well as master data management. It is more than the sum of the parts, the tools have existed for a long time, but the key thing that it does is drive the automation of data alongside the automation of process steps.”
It is the implementation of such tools and processes, and the evolution of Connecting Government 2030’s vision of human-centred experiences that will allow the proactive approach that the two see as key to progress.
Stobie concludes: “To continue to improve the citizen experience, it is imperative that government continues its progress from the reactive to the responsive and then to be proactive in everything they do. It is not just about the experience, but also the savings that can be made. Ultimately, it all revolves around having the right data platform to automate not just the steps, but the flow of data.”
W: salesforce.com/eu/publicsector
Minister of State Ossian Smyth TD: Securing Ireland’s energy future
Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications Ossian Smyth TD discusses actions by the Government to mitigate security of supply concerns, energy affordability, and the importance of renewable diversification.
The Green Party TD believes that, whilst Ireland has been successful in onshore wind development, a shortage of offshore wind, solar and anaerobic digestion leaves Ireland “lacking that strength that comes with diversity”.
Security of supply review
Pointing to the security of supply review, currently being undertaken by the Department for the Environment, Climate and Communications, the Minister of State says that it will “examine potential risks to both our natural gas and electricity supplies and examines a range of measures to mitigate these risks”.
Smyth emphasises his belief in the importance of having a diverse renewables portfolio, as well as the developing storage, demand side response and interconnection which will support the State’s decarbonisation and energy security agenda.
Smyth says that the risks identified and examined as part of the review are demand side risks and supply side risks. Demand side risks include weather events and significant increases in demand whilst the supply side risks that have been identified include a disruption to UK gas imports, geopolitical risks, electricity generation capacity deficits, and low availability of wind generation.
A longlist of mitigation options was created to address the identified risks and then these options were appraised against a set of key criteria to identify a short list of appropriate mitigation options for further analysis.
Minister of State Ossian Smyth TD
The key selection criteria used were:
1. consistency with the Climate Action Plan;
2. security of supply impact; and
3. feasibility of implementation.
“A range of measures to mitigate these risks were examined as part of the technical analysis. The mitigation measures include options such as the need for additional capacity to import energy, a reduction in energy use, energy storage, fuel diversification and renewable gases such as biomethane and hydrogen,” the Minister of State explains.
“All of these mitigation options were modelled under a number of shock scenarios to understand the impact of each option and the level of security of supply that they can provide within the timeframe to 2030.”
A consultation on the review of security of energy supply of Ireland’s electricity and gas systems was launched on 19 September 2022.
Tackling the cost-of-living
Smyth states that the Budget was designed to ensure that people are protected from the worst of the consequences of the war in Ukraine, and outlines measures taken in the budget to ensure affordability for consumers which include:
• energy credits worth an additional €600: €600 in additional energy credits will be paid over winter 22/23 in addition to the €200 credit already paid in
April/May 2022. These credits will be reflected directly on consumer electricity bills;
• a Public Service Obligation (PSO) rebate worth €89 which the CRU confirmed that the PSO for 22/23 will be negative. Every domestic household will receive this €89 as a credit on their electricity bills, representing an annual saving of €140.76; and • lower VAT on energy bills worth €64: The 9 per cent
VAT rate on energy bills has been extended to
February 2023. This represents a gain worth approximately €64 for the average household over the period October 2022 to February 2023.
Smyth adds: “In the longer term, the Government recognises the need to diversify our energy supply and end our reliance on fossil fuels. As such, the Government has in recent months committed to a number of new ambitious targets to increase Ireland’s renewable energy capacity. These include an offshore wind target of 7GW, a solar energy target of 5.5GW and incentivising the use of up to 5.7TWh of anaerobic digestion, all by 2030.”
Security of electricity supply
Stating that the supply of the State’s electricity is linked to the supply of natural gas, the Minister of State says that “about half of electricity generated in Ireland comes from gas-fired power stations. Renewables accounted for 42 per cent of electricity generation, 37 per cent of which was from wind energy alone, but this can be intermittent as back-up is needed when the wind doesn’t blow”.
“Remaining electricity generation comes from a mixture of coal, peat and oil. Ireland’s gas-fired power plants are capable of running on secondary fuel such as oil if there is a disruption to gas supplies; these plants have limited reserves of oil stored onsite for emergency situations.”
Outlining the challenges to electricity supply which arise from situations removed from the war in Ukraine, Smyth states long-term solutions which include “procuring new capacity through capacity auctions; procuring additional temporary generation; extending the availability of existing power stations; and improved demand-side measures”.
Data Protection Commission expansion
In July 2022, Minister for Justice Helen McEntee TD announced an expansion of the Data Protection Commission, which will see the commission take on two additional commissioners, with the current commissioner, Helen Dickson, to become the chair.
The Department of Justice has confirmed that the appointments will be made in accordance with Section 15 of the Data Protection Act 2018, which provides for up to three commissioners to be appointed. The process of appointing the two additional commissioners will take up to six months to complete. The terms and conditions of the new commissioners pend the approval of the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Michael McGrath TD.
The Data Protection Commission was established in 2018, and has seen its budget grow from an initial €3.6 million to €23.2 million in its four years of operation.
The expansion of the commission follows an examination instigated in 2021 by former Minister for Justice, Heather Humphreys TD, to consider whether an increase in the membership of the commission should be pursued.
In line with the Government’s commitment to ensure that the DPC can best deliver on its responsibilities, the Department of Justice was requested to consider the matter of appointing additional commissioners, as provided for under the 2018 Act.
The consideration was initiated on the basis that the commission has evolved significantly since its inception. The increased working burden and investigative complexity has been regularly highlighted by the commission itself and its stakeholders.
This is due to a set of powers which have been conferred on the commission, due to both the Regulation and the EU Law Enforcement Directives, including investigative, corrective, authorisation, and advisory powers on the DPC and that the volume of complaints was also likely to increase.
The move is an effort to continue implementation of the Harnessing Digital strategy, first published in February 2022, which sets out the Government’s intention for the State to be “a digital leader at the heart of European and global digital developments”.
Minister for Justice, Helen McEntee TD says: "[The] Government’s decision sends a strong statement of its intention to continue to build the capacity of the Data Protection Commission, support the existing commissioner and ensure that the commission can continue to deliver on its role.
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